Global Warming Debate

[sailhog]

Originally Posted by erps

On behalf of the rest of us on the planet, I beg of you sailhog, use the tools you've been given.

Cuz I'll be big as a zeppelin in a week!

[sailhog]

Ever see footage of the Hindenburgh blowing up? That's what keeps me up at night. I DO NOT want to end up like that.

[camaraderie]

"Ever since Soviet and Western climate scientists published the first international compendium on global warming, back in 1985, we have known that scaring people to death is very good for the environmentalist business. Such documents appear once or twice a year under the aegis of sundry governmental and international agencies, such as the United States' Climate Change Science Program (CCSP)....."
DISCUSSION OF LATEST REPORT then...
"Trash the entire report. It's neither scientific nor logical. It's a political document. Send the product lead back to Asheville and the senior editor back to Hollywood.
But of course, that won't happen. Instead, the CCSP report and its production team will be lionized. It will serve as the basis for the most onerous environmental legislation and regulations in U.S. history. And when historians look back at a nation made poorer by foolish policies (which themselves will have no effect on warming), they will wonder how climate science could have gone so far into the wilderness of politics."
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Since we are often called on to cite REAL climate scientists doing current work rather than just oil company funded "deny-ers" I thought this article might be of interest. There is MUCH more detail in the full article. Here's the bio of the guy who wrote it.


Dr. Patrick Michaels:
Michaels is a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and visiting scientist with the Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C. He is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society. Michaels is a contributing author and reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. His writing has been published in the major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and Science, as well as in popular serials such as the Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, and Journal of Commerce. He was an author of the climate "paper of the year" awarded by the Association of American Geographers in 2004. He has appeared on ABC, NPR's "All Things Considered," PBS, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC and Voice of America. According to Nature magazine, Pat Michaels may be the most popular lecturer in the nation on the subject of global warming. Michaels holds A.B. and S.M. degrees in biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of Chicago, and he received a Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1979.


Just another whacko deny-er!
Here's the full article:
Record Low For Climate Science

[poopdeckpappy]

Heard on the news radio tonight tha 08 was the coolest year in the last 5, some global climate experts are seriously saying that the warming trend is over and we will be heading into a cooling cycle.

[sailaway21]

I swear to God what will be hilarious about all of this is listening to the GW crowd ten years from now. You all know former "nuclear winter" advocates-ever had one admit they were wrong? Those are the same people who were in favor of unilateral disarmament. It's considered declasse to bring up the Cold War, or their position on it, today. Hey, anybody can get a half century wrong.

This is all going to disappear like a fart in a windstorm but by then they'll be on to something else that centers around the inherent evil of western civilization. These are the same coconuts who've never followed up on the research on DDT that show it did virtually nothing that they said it did-because they'd already won the battle for hearts and minds on that issue. It's considered rude to bring up malarial deaths in their presence although you have to work at it to get them to now say DDT is toxic to other wildlife or humans-they're content with the position where everyone just accepts it as common wisdom.

And that's their stock in trade; common wisdom. Not scientific truth but common wisdom.

[artbyjody]

Maybe not but maybe you missed this:

Ice sheet breaks loose off Canada - CNN.com

and this

4,500-year-old ice shelf breaks away - CNN.com

[camaraderie]

Jody...you need to stop getting your science from CNN!
Ice normally flows under pressure to the sea and breaks off in chunks...some big...some small. What counts in proving or disproving global warming is the extent of the total ice...over a long period of time. Of course, even if the ice were retreating...this does not prove man made global warming...only that the climate is changing as it always does.

Now...as to meaningful data for THIS year.... Here is the reality:
Increase twice the size of Germany: "colder weather" to blame.
The data is for August 2008 and indicates a total sea ice area of six million square kilometers. Ice extent for the same month in 2007 covered 5.3 million square kilometers, a historic low. Earlier this year, media accounts were rife with predictions that this year would again see a new record. Instead, the Arctic has seen a gain of about thirteen percent. Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has indicated a dramatic increase in sea ice extent in the Arctic regions. The growth over the past year covers an area of 700,000 square kilometers: an amount twice the size the nation of Germany.
With the Arctic melting season over for 2008, ice cover will continue to increase until melting begins anew next spring.
The data is for August 2008 and indicates a total sea ice area of six million square kilometers. Ice extent for the same month in 2007 covered 5.3 million square kilometers, a historic low. Earlier this year, media accounts were rife with predictions that this year would again see a new record. Instead, the Arctic has seen a gain of about thirteen percent.
*****Full Article: DailyTech - Arctic Sees Massive Gain in Ice Coverage

So we gain ice the size of Germany and CNN chooses to report that a 26 mile chunk has fallen off. Do you think there is a reason CNN has not reported the TOTAL ice numbers??

In fairness, last year was the lowest Arctic ice year in the thirty years or so we've had satellites monitoring it. (But that was mostly attributed to a shift in ocean currents that is a multi-decadel occurence). Antarctica however in the same year registered record ice levels...something that wouldn't happen if the warming were indeed global.
My main point here is that the media are hopelessly biased since a good scare story is good for ratings and they love bad news of any kind. You have to work hard to get the real story.

[sailaway21]

At 4,500 years it was probably due, wouldn't you think?

[camaraderie]

And now...this news flash from NASA...more on 9/23!

NASA To Discuss Conditions On And Surrounding The Sun

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a media teleconference Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 12:30 p.m. EDT, to discuss data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses mission that reveals the sun's solar wind is at a 50-year low. The sun's current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.

Ulysses was the first mission to survey the space environment above and below the poles of the sun. The reams of data Ulysses returned have changed forever the way scientists view our star and its effects. The venerable spacecraft has lasted more than 17 years - almost four times its expected mission lifetime.
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Must be all that CO2 we release! Who knew that the SUN could affect us??!!

[PBzeer]

I suppose the next thing you're going to say is it isn't Bush's fault, when everyone knows it is